Bab 2: Sudden Phone Call

As they entered the meeting room, Feng Mian tried to focus on the matter on the hand. She still felt tired because of the matter yesterday, but she needed to focus on the color.

'Red is for celebration and this shade is…'

During the New Year celebration, the company wanted to introduce several new sweets. They have already finalized the product last week, so it was the designer team's turn to show their work that they have been working nonstop for the past few days. The beautiful fireworks background was the design they picked with the colorful red and yellow.

Feng Mian worked tirelessly to pick the correct shade color because she wanted them to have the best contrast. She had to make sure that she did her research before she finally decided on the color.

There were several types of sweet, so there were more than one team presenting their ideas. Yu Yan's team was in the middle, so they waited patiently as the other groups began to present their ideas. The president's secretary was busy noting down the key point of the presentation while their president was sitting on his chair.

Even though he was within her line of sight, Feng Mian didn't dare to raise her head to look in his direction. The president was young, 26 years of age yet already owned several types of business. This sweet company was only one of them and also the biggest one as it held the monopoly over the types of sweet sold in this country. The business overseas was still in progress, but it had been moving steadily.

"Now, the third one is Manager Yu's team."

"Yes!" Yu Yan sat up straight from her position. Even though she was very nervous just now, she had calmed down after a while. Her eyes were completely focused on the file on her arm as she began to explain. "Because the sweet we choose this time is a caramel…"

Feng Mian paid close attention and stood up when Yu Yan said about the color. She cleared her throat. "As it is New Year's theme, we come to the decision that the color palette of this shade…."

There were a lot of technical terms of colors flowing out of her mouth. Yu Yan had to nudge her a bit before Feng Mian realized that her bad habit came out. She often used the terms that ordinary people would not understand because of her university. She coughed and used more understandable terms before she sat down again.

'Did I do it right?'

Feng Mian sneaked a glance at the directors, but didn't see any expression in their faces. Internally, she sighed to herself. Why are these businessmen and businesswomen really love to hide their expressions? It made it harder for her to know whether they were satisfied or not.

After the long presentation, it was finally over. Yu Yan felt slightly weak on her knees, but she stayed still in her place. In any case, she shouldn't do anything in case she would make them look bad.

"Meeting adjourned. The accepted proposals are here but some still need corrections. Those that didn't pass on the check have to repeat it. I expect the report on my desk tomorrow," the general manager announced as he received the notes from the secretary.

"Let's see how we did."

"Ok."

Looking at the sides, Feng Mian was glad that the higher ups and the directors in charge of the design had left. She disliked talking with those powerful people because she knew that even a little mistake might end fatally. Thinking about the power they had behind their back, she shivered a bit.

Yu Yan picked up the folder and sighed in relief upon seeing the green stamp with the word 'Accepted' in bold.

"There's some things we need to fix."

"Oh, the angle is not good enough. I'll ask Sister Ye to fix it then."

Feng Mian nodded. She was mostly in charge of the colors, which might be considered boring for other people. There were four people in their team, each of them has to work in a different field and because she was the worst when it came to designing digitally, she was tasked to handle the color palette.

Yu Yan smiled. "Alright, let's work on the report."

"Ok."

Returning back to their team, they headed back to work. They only needed to finish fixing the report before their work was done for today. Some other unfortunate teams have to redo their design, so they were scampering here and there, trying to find ideas for better boxes or something like that.

Time was limited, and they needed to finish two weeks before New Year or the production team might not make it in time.

Feng Mian was completely focused on the work because she wanted to finish as soon as possible. As soon as the clock hit four o'clock, she looked to Yu Yan.

"Yan'er, can I leave early today?"

"It's rare for you to be leaving." Yu Yan was stunned. "Well, I just need to add this picture and the report is done, so I guess it's fine. But can you tell me the reason?"

Feng Mian forced a smile out. "My mother is hospitalized."

"Again?"

"Yeah."

For the past few months, Feng Mian's mother has been going in and out of the hospital because of kidney failure. Feng Mian managed to fork some money for an operation back then by using the savings they have. However, the problem continued to persist even now.

Last night, it was worse, so Feng Mian could only bring her mother to the hospital once more.

"I wish her well. Go."

"Thanks Yu Yan, I'll make it up with working overtime later."

Yu Yan waved her hand as she shook her head. She felt bad for her best friend. Even though she had entered the company earlier and older than Feng Mian, the two of them got close pretty quickly because of their personality. However, Feng Mian's life has been turning for the worse lately.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

As Feng Mian entered the train, which was the cheapest public transportation in this country,* she heard her phone rang. Picking it up, she quickly brought it to her ear.

"Yes, this is Feng Mian."

"Hello, Miss Feng Mian, there's a problem. The kidney on Madam Feng is no longer working properly, we need your permission for dialysis.**"

Hearing that, Feng Mian's phone nearly dropped. "Yes, yes, please do that soon."

"Your signature…"

"I'll do it after I reach the hospital, so take care of it first, ok?"

"But…"

"Just do it!"

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Sora's Corner: Science Biology

**Dialysis: it's a method to wash your blood. Kidney is important because it's used to filter your blood and the waste is gathered as urine. When it was no longer working well, waste would mix with your blood, so treatment had to be done. Dialysis is the method to filter your blood by taking it out and filter it before returning the blood back into your body.